IgloONotes

After months of waiting, looking down at my watch and scratching off the days on the calendar, the day had finally arrived. My Girlfriend was going to be arriving in Germany for a wondrous holiday together. We would be flying, taking the train, and of course, driving to cities all across Europe.

Let me highlight driving.

I had to pick up my Girlfriend from Frankfurt airport. I wanted to use the company car but policy doesn't allow the car to stay with me overnight. The company cars available to me are simple. Either a green Ford Focus which is falling apart or a Blue Opel Astra. I've honed my Manual driving skills in both cars and each has their own characteristics. The Focus for example is easy to drive smooth, but once you're on the road it starts to complain that you didn't service it yesterday.

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Time. The most important question running through my head. I've recently had a lot of time on my hands and spending it usefully has been a problem. Google news is only a click away, and its relatively useful. Instead of staring at a useless computer screen, I can read about what's going on in this world. The US elections I'll admit attracted more of my attention than it should have. You'd think that being Canadian, I would have followed the Canadian elections more but, no.

Canadian Politics has turned into just one huge mess I could honestly care less about who turns out as Prime Minister. The only thing I could ask for is lower tuition fees.

I've tried going on Youtube once in a while but, watching a cat flush a toilet over and over. And over. And over...gets boring. Maybe seeing a kid fall off his bike ending in a screaming cry is funny for some, but I just think, poor kid.

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If you've been keeping up with my Go karting shenanigans, you'll know that I've got a pretty good record. I set the fastest lap time and placed second on my first outing. My second time round, I placed second in every possible place: qualifying, fastest lap, and the race, behind the one and only Speedy Sparky.

I've been waiting for my time to get back into a Kart for a while. The last two times left me with an addiction that I just couldn't shake. My jousting with Sparky left me in a definite second place. The fact was, he was faster and I couldn't pass him. I had led for one ceremonious lap, but he duly passed me right away. I wanted to know what could of been...

Time went along and every once in a while my mind would get stuck on Karts. How fast I would be against real competitive guys? Would I be able to pass them or just get relegated to an uninspiring second place? Sparky was good, don't get me wrong, but he was only one guy. I wanted to challenge a group of highly strung veteran German racers on the track.

My friend asked me if I would be interested in joining him and a group of fellow guys on the Kart track. He said it was a different track than we've been to and we'd be going for one hour. He didn't even have to ask me twice. October 30th...redemption.
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So if you’ve all been keeping up with recent news you’ll know that the Canadian dollar has surpassed the US dollar in value. For us Canadians, that only means one thing…shopping!

Looking for the best place to go netted only one result; Great Lakes Crossing. It’s a shopping mall filled with outlet stores and has a land area of about 1.4 million square feet! As a plus, it was only 45 minutes away, which meant more time for shopping.

I would be going with two friends, both girls. You must be thinking…are you crazy?! Me, being a guy and both my friends being professed shopaholics. Thanks in part to my many travels in China, I was prepared for what lay ahead. I had already been on a few shopping marathons in my life. Read More »

Would you ever think that you could define a whole country simply by riding in taxi? On the way to your destination you can see the scenery that flashes by. On the radio, you’ll know what type of music they listen to and most importantly, while sitting in the passenger seat, you’ll fully understand what the locals have to drive through on a daily basis.

I never really thought much of the blue and yellow cabs that roam Windsor. You see them parked outside of shopping malls and airports, waiting for new customers. They’re essential in our lives and yet we just don’t notice… that is, until I went to China.

You’ve all heard of the game Crazy Taxi right? Just the name of it brings flashes of yellow taxi’s zooming around downtown New York. You always hear of the people who complain about the crazy taxi drivers (me including) but I never fully understood why. If anything bad happened on the road, you blamed it on the taxi. Read More »

(Written in May 2008)

Wow...its been a long time since I've blogged about... well, anything! You can tack the reasons onto the exam boards. I'm pretty sure I passed all my courses, which is a great thing because now I can fly off to Gemany knowing I don't have to wind back into a course that I would have totally forgotten how to do. I digress.

This is about what I've been doing since my last blog post; the review of my new camera, the Panasonic TZ5 which by the way has served me very very well so far.

First up on my list was my last week with my girlfriend before she headed off to Hong Kong. Bittersweet, for those of you who knows what its like to have a loved one fly across the world. Before I let her go though, we took a bike ride all the way to the Windsor riverside to watch the sunrise.

Yes, it was very early, and because it was April, yes it was cold in the morning. No matter, we had a sunrise to catch! We woke up around 4:45 and left the house at 5:45 ish to catch the sunrise which according to online sources, would rise at 6:31 AM. On my road rocket, I can bike from my house to the river in 30 minutes. With both of us on Mountain bikes, it would be slightly longer... Read More »

No, Höllentalklamm is not an ancient chant used by witches. Though it would be fitting because translated into English, 'Höllental' means 'Valley of Hell'. I guess I should of read about this before putting my name down for the trip. Nonethless I stared danger in the eyes, and prepared for what would turn out to be one of the most amazing places that I have ever seen.

My friend Jeff is a really avid hiker and when he approached me to go hiking, I was really quite excited to go hiking for the first time in Germany. This was the reason I bought a pair of Timberland Hiking shoes, as well as brining along a hiking backpack. The date was set in stone and for once the weather, the reason for many previous cancellations, near the hiking trails was projected this time to be excellent. Hiking up a mountain in nice clear weather? Awesome. Read More »

No I'm not talkign about germs, I am talking about Germany. After almost three months there are really two things that keep popping up. The amount of beer these people drink and their fast cars. The cool thing is that the legal alcohol tolerance is really low here and if you're caught drinking and driving, your liscence is stripped, car impounded and given a hefty fine. This is the sort of thing Canada needs.

Speaking of fast cars, I've driven my company car at 220 km/h on the autobahn. Again. Its starting to become natural and anything under 200 seems slow. Maybe I'm being infected by these Germans...

So this is the first 10 minute blog which I actually plan on doing in less than 5.

Anyways, I had a really hard time waking up this morning due to a number of reasons that I really don't know. I set my alarm to 6:30, didn't get out of the bed until 7:00, and then finally left the house at 7:15. In Contrast, from the time the alarm goes off, I am usually at work in 15-20 minutes. This time, my alram turned on, I slammed the snooze button more than once and just couldn't pry myself out of bed.

It was cold when I stepped out. And raining. My bike ride to work is relatively uneventful with a big hill at the start that gets the wind blowing in your face to wake you up. Then right at the end, I hit the tiniest puddle which totally soaked my left foot. Then... I had to continue riding and half way, I forgot something. By then, I couldn't be bothered with anything else and just kept going until I got to my desk. Rain rain go away, come again another day!!

Its really annoying when things just don't work. Your clock, your car, your...anything really. Its even more annoying when the only computer that you have available to you isn't able to run.

The scorching temperatures Macbooks are able hit without melting down have been rife on the internet. I've even seen a case where some chap's Mac had literally melted while watching a DVD.

Lucky for me, my Mac was spared its life while the power adaptor had taken the blow.

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